Tesla sued for US man's death
Failure of door-handles to ‘present’ blamed for death of Tesla Model S driverThe family of a man who burned to death in his 2016 Tesla Model S in Florida is suing Tesla for wrongful death.
Dr Omar Awan’s death occurred in February when his car allegedly swerved across three lanes of traffic and over a median strip before hitting trees and bursting into flames, a police report stated.
He was reportedly burnt beyond recognition as emergency crews attending the scene could not open the vehicle’s flush exterior door-handles as they had not extended.
Model S doors are supposed to unlock and their exterior handles extend when an airbag is deployed, but witnesses at the scene said that didn’t happen in this case. And because the 48-year-old doctor was incapacitated, he couldn’t open the door from the inside.
According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the car continued to burn for hours, even reigniting after emergency services had extinguished the blaze and then multiple times at the tow yard following the incident.
A firefighter told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that fire crews were called back to the yard three times to extinguish the blaze. He said that the power in the car’s battery pack continued to dry their fire retardant and reignite fires.
Florida lawyer Stuart Grossman said Tesla should have made sure its car could be accessed in an emergency.
“That’s a fundamental design flaw,” Grossman said.
The news follows several highly publicised Tesla vehicle fires and comes as Tesla boss Elon Musk faces problems of his own in the form of a defamation lawsuit after referring to a hero British cave rescuer as “pedo guy” on Twitter.
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